Minimum-wage increase imposed by will of voters

U-T

FILE -- Todd Gloria made a proposal today at City Hall to raise the minimum wage to $13.09 per hour. From left to right, Peter Brownell, research director for the Center on Policy Iniatives. Todd Gloria, Council President and Councilwoman Sherri Lightner.

FILE -- Todd Gloria made a proposal today at City Hall to raise the minimum wage to $13.09 per hour. From left to right, Peter Brownell, research director for the Center on Policy Iniatives. Todd Gloria, Council President and Councilwoman Sherri Lightner. (U-T)

TODD GLORIA

The days following Jan. 1, 2017, have been an interesting twist of irony.

To mitigate the voter-approved increase in San Diego’s minimum wage, some restaurants opted to impose an additional tax on their customers. Sometimes, news of this surcharge arrived at the end of the dining experience with amounts varying from establishment to establishment.

Even large groups of restaurants were caught tacking an extra 4 percent onto patrons’ bills citing a “government mandated” increase in the minimum wage.

Last week, San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott called the legality of these surcharges into question for potential violations under the California Business and Professions Code for false advertising. Ironically, the surcharges are not the only falsehood.

Among the most pervasive is the notion that the City of San Diego’s minimum wage increase is “government mandated.”

No — the San Diego City Council did not unilaterally make a decision to raise the minimum wage. Rather, 63 percent of San Diegans voted to approve a minimum-wage increase in June as Proposition I.

Yes — almost two-thirds of San Diego voters supported a minimum-wage increase. And, more than 250,000 of our fellow San Diegans received a boost in pay.

This decision by the voters demonstrated a recognition that decent wages foster stronger community and economy. Further, this decision publicly documented — by virtue of the ballot box — the overwhelming majority belief that no person who works full time should be forced to live in poverty. So, if any mandate was levied, it came from the residents of San Diego — the same people who patronize our local restaurants.

As San Diegans, we know all too well that the cost of living in our city is sky high. Undeniably, costs have risen in nearly every category of our home and work budgets for years — rent, utilities, and insurance, just to name a few.

Businesses are not exempt from these rising costs. Neither are workers. Yet consumers have never been subjected to any surcharges to account for these rising costs and the minimum wage in California remained stuck at poverty levels for six years.

Workers have not seen much relief in terms of raises. Approximately 82 percent of food service workers did not have access to one paid sick day until the state, the city, and the public acted. Unfortunately, it took legislation and a ballot measure to pay workers a decent wage and improve working conditions.

Having represented the urban core of the city of San Diego for more than eight years, it’s not lost upon me that our local businesses bring tremendous benefit to our city and form a cornerstone of our local economy.

Given the high cost of living and rising expenses, it is understandable that restaurants and small businesses alike are concerned about the long-term impacts a higher minimum wage can cause.

To this, I would reference the documented experience from the Center on Policy Initiatives, UC Berkeley, and Wetzel’s Pretzels.

The Center on Policy Initiatives, after studying similar increases across the country dating back 15 years, found “no significant negative effects on employment, employees’ hours, or number of businesses while prices barely budge and low-income families, especially those headed by women and people of color, are better able to meet their living expenses.”

UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor Employment found that San Jose’s $2 increase in their minimum wage provided great benefit to restaurant workers and actually did not hurt business. In fact, profits remained constant.

As for Wetzel’s Pretzels, CEO Bill Phelps told CNBC this past March, “California raised the minimum wage in 2014 from $8 to $9. Our same-store sales were up 8 percent in the next six months.” Then, when California’s minimum wage reached $10, Phelps said his sales grew by 7 percent.

So, the idea that a business cannot be successful with a higher minimum wage is false.

The truth is: paying employees enough to live in their community is an essential component of any good business plan. Conversely, attempting to run a business with little regard for if or how your employees make ends meet is detrimental and is certainly not becoming of America’s Finest City.

The fabric of San Diego and what makes our city truly great is the people who live here. As a community, we should value our workers enough to invest in them. If the passage of Proposition I is any indication, voters believe that we should. Now, it’s time for our businesses to do the same.

Gloria, a California State Assemblymember, is a former San Diego City Councilmember, City Council President, and the author of the City of San Diego’s Minimum Wage and Earned Sick Leave Ordinance.